Re: We're all doomed! Doomed I say- the Corona virus thread for panicking in!

[Mrs Figg]

If it is still circulating because a lot of young people don't see the point then a lot of vulnerable people will still be living in fear and self isolating. Some people won't be able to have the vaccine for various health reasons, and over certain months there will be flare-up and pockets of disease. That's why for all society as a whole it should be mandatory to have the jab. I look at it as a civic duty to protect the vulnerable and old. It is my civic duty to do it for myself and others.

[Lancebloke]

If that is the case then all vaccines should be mandatory for all people at all times, not just covid. People have to deal with flu and all sorts of other things already when they have various underlying health issues.

The long and short of it is people will say no either because they are anti-vax or because they are anti-authoritarianism if it is forced on them. Especially for a 0.06% mortality rate, which includes the vulnerable, and a vaccine that is really unknown in its long term effects.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Its effectively mandatory anyway if you work in health care of any sort- yeah could refuse to take it, then they can refuse to employ you as youre a risk to patients. }}

[Mrs Figg]

If that is the case then all vaccines should be mandatory for all people at all times, not just covid. People have to deal with flu and all sorts of other things already when they have various underlying health issues.

The long and short of it is people will say no either because they are anti-vax or because they are anti-authoritarianism if it is forced on them. Especially for a 0.06% mortality rate, which includes the vulnerable, and a vaccine that is really unknown in its long term effects.

It is also mandatory to take a driving test which saves lives and nobody complains of authoritarianism. Also other vaccines are not mandatory as they are not as highly infective. Most vaccines are elective because the individual suffers most, not society as a whole if they don't have the vaccine. This vaccine is more important as it spreads like fuckery and its novel. Its not authoritarian to make it mandatory but there are many anti-xaxx nutjobs who want everyone to think it is. it is just common sense and common decency to have it. And as Petty said, if a health worker refuses it they should be refused access to vulnerable patients.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ When it comes to care work at least, as vast majority of homes are private businesses it wont be a matter of should, it will be matter of take it or leave the job. Covid is way, way to big a business risk, any home that has an outbreak after vaccination, and it turns out its because they dont insist their staff are vaccinated- they wont get residents. And money always talks more than anything else. }}

[Lancebloke]

What has it being "novel" got to do with it?

And I don't see your argument really. Flu spreads too... 10s of thousands of people die from it every year but no mandatory vaccine.

And again... forcing everyone to put a drug that has been tested for a few months in their body for the sake of a 0.06% mortality rate. Have you read any of the papers? Not enough information in whether it impacts pregnancy or fertility or all sorts of other things. And you think we should FORCE people to take it?

[azriel]

Im leaning towards what Lance says. I feel reticent against the vaccine because of side effects & how severe they may be ? Half of me understands that getting free of this virus is urgent but, I can also understand that this is another virus, which can mutate, grow stronger or, fizzle away. Its not Plague, its not leprosy, Dysentery, Trench foot, or any other awful disease. So we take the vaccine for this virus & then another virus hits, say in 2 yrs time. And another in 6 yrs time. We shall be vaccinating non stop, what are we doing to ourselves internally ? will this lead to such a low natural defence that 1 small "Bug" will kill us off ? Im having an internal mental chit chat with myself & Im not entirely positive about this, being forced to have the vaccine. Being threatened to take it under duress isnt very comforting is it ? So, for arguments sake, if it all goes belly up & we glow in the dark & have webbed feet will we be looked after or just told it was a risk that we had to do. More people with side effects out of work, filling up Homes than working & having normal lives ? A bit extreme I know, probably watched too many B/W films with mad scientists ( played by Peter Lorre ) but thats what kerchings round in my head.

[Mrs Figg]

What has it being "novel" got to do with it?

And I don't see your argument really. Flu spreads too... 10s of thousands of people die from it every year but no mandatory vaccine.

And again... forcing everyone to put a drug that has been tested for a few months in their body for the sake of a 0.06% mortality rate. Have you read any of the papers? Not enough information in whether it impacts pregnancy or fertility or all sorts of other things. And you think we should FORCE people to take it?

yes, we should force people to take it, not only that there should be vaccine passports for travel and sensitive jobs like health workers. No jab, no job, no jab, no flying to foreign countries. This vaccine is safe and the world has stopped functioning for a year. Millions of people died, and the knock on effects for mental health, in particular kids and vulnerable people will be horrendous. The economics alone make it ludicrous not to mass vaccinate. Sorry but there are no moral reasons not to.

[halfwise]

it makes sense to say "if you want to travel, teach, work in medical field, food industry etc etc then you must be vaccinated". That way people will feel they still have a choice even if they really don't because so many jobs require it. Let movie theatres decide if they want to let unvaccinated people in, etc. I suppose that may cause a split between those who let people in and those who don't, and who knows what business model is best? It's not an overwhelmingly deadly disease, so in this case people will respond better under gentle pressure than enforced pressure.

[Lancebloke]

yes, we should force people to take it, not only that there should be vaccine passports for travel and sensitive jobs like health workers. No jab, no job, no jab, no flying to foreign countries. This vaccine is safe and the world has stopped functioning for a year. Millions of people died, and the knock on effects for mental health, in particular kids and vulnerable people will be horrendous. The economics alone make it ludicrous not to mass vaccinate. Sorry but there are no moral reasons not to.

I agree with about 50% of your statement here. If you want to travel abroad then another country has every right to say "don't bring it to us" just like they do with things like Yellow Fever.

Jobs, yes, employers can mandate that everyone who works for them must have the jab (i am sure that may be hard for everyone already in that job as it is not part of their current contract, but for new hires it could be changed).

You couldn't control the clientele very well though and certainly for essential services like supermarkets... I dont think you can mandated that.

And back to my point (which you made an assertion with no evidence) about forcing someone to put something in their body that has not been fully tested. The papers from Pfizer themselves lists a number of things, including pregnancy and fertility, that they do not know if it has any impact. This is a brand new type of vaccination and you are willing to take the risk of creating an entire generation of infertile people or babies with unforseen abnormalities? And you don't see a moral or health reason to be cautious?

You do realise we have had vaccinations go horribly wrong before, like actually giving people full blown polio when trying to vaccinate when it was deemed safe?

And again 0.06% mortality rate which will be FAR lower once the majority of high risk and care worker populations are vaccinated.

[Mrs Figg]

These are desperate times, the world needs to go back to normal. Polio is a false equivalence. Being pregnant may be a risk factor so they are more in need of a vaccine.

[Lancebloke]

I am not sure why polio is a false equivalence given it was highly contagious and far more deadly. But if there is a reason why it is not equivalent... how about the H1N1 vaccine? That was withdrawn because it was linked to a deadly central nervous system disease.

Being pregnant may be a risk factor... having the vaccine may be a risk factor to the fetus.

What is more desperate than a world with infertility?

It feels like the fear of something that is statistically not that bad is overriding some common sense here. And I say that as someone that has likely had it and knows people that are very close to me that have been in ICU from it.

Covid-19 is not a huge amount more deadly than influenza and probably only so because it is more contagious. It also seems so far like it is far less adaptable than the flu virus so once it gets through its "novel" status and humans have more of a natural defence, it will likely become a fringe disease (unless it mutates more quickly in the future).

I totally fail to see any reason for forcing a vaccination when there are still LOTS of unknowns about long term impacts and the facts about the actual impacts of covid-19.

[Mrs Figg]

well this is all academic as it isn't being forced on the population. I for one will be taking it asap, and if I grow another head, or sprout tentacles, so be it.
Also, reducing human fertility is not a bad thing. It will save the Amazon from being cut down for beefburgers.

[halfwise]

The best cure for fertility seems to be affluence. But I find it hard to make a convincing case for why this is true. Perhaps what's really happening is that "affluence" is highly correlated to specialization and mechanization, both of which drives agriculture towards a corporate structure. Is there any occupation other than farming for which having a large family seems to make things easier? Once you drive family farms out, all the pressure seems to be against having a large family.

[Lancebloke]

Halfy - I think it is probably genetics. More affluence means less likelihood of offspring randomly dying of stuff so firstly no need to produce lots in the hopes of a percentage surviving.

That means more time can be spent for preparing your gene pool for the competition or will face with more time and resources being dedicated to less numbers and therefore a higher chance of them being successful.

Genes being genes... and probably doing so in a far more complicated way they my silly explanation.

[Lancebloke]

well this is all academic as it isn't being forced on the population. I for one will be taking it asap, and if I grow another head, or sprout tentacles, so be it.
Also, reducing human fertility is not a bad thing. It will save the Amazon from being cut down for beefburgers.

Yes it is. Either way, be safe and make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you do it.

[halfwise]

Halfy - I think it is probably genetics. More affluence means less likelihood of offspring randomly dying of stuff so firstly no need to produce lots in the hopes of a percentage surviving.

That means more time can be spent for preparing your gene pool for the competition or will face with more time and resources being dedicated to less numbers and therefore a higher chance of them being successful.

Umm, no. Farmers still want a large family, despite larger infant mortality. When I was referring to fertility I actually should have said family size and population growth rate. And I wasn't in any way suggesting that the genes of affluent nations lead to lower birth rates. It's a conscious choice, not genetics. Though that decision is still being driven by competition for resources.

The puzzlement is why, given that "affluent" countries have more resources, don't families choose to have more children as a result? I think one of the prices of affluence is more training to adapt to the complex system that produces this affluence: one wants to send one's kids to college, and that's expensive. Having more kids is no longer competitive because they will not be bringing much in on entry level wages. With farming you train your kids to be productive, but now we farm the training out.

[Forest Shepherd]

There are 70,000 dead people in the UK, that is the size of a whole town, just imagine a whole town dying. we have to take it seriously.

In 2019 530,841 people died in England and Wales, that is the size of a large city!
(According to what I was reading the year-to-date death registrations in England and Wales were up by about 60k by November over the previous five-year average. My point is not that 60k is nothing, but rather that it is an increase of 9% over normal.)
source
source

According to Snopes anyway, the increased number over here in the US is between 8% and 12% so far, or "up to 204,000" extra on top of an expected 2.8 million (roughly).
Snopes
2018 deaths in US

[Lancebloke]

Halfy - I think we are saying a similar thing. Competition in an affluent setting is harder therefore more resources are needed to compete which is best done with smaller families. This is genetics at play really... the conscious "choice" is driven by the subconscious need for the survival of your of DNA set.

On the farming thing... not sure if I missed something but you said larger families and bigger child mortality. Those 2 go hand in hand too in the survival of the DNA set.

[Mrs Figg]

Those 60,000 are people who didn't need to die if the UK had had a functioning government, instead they have died due to corporate manslaughter. Johnson and Handcock need to be prosecuted for this. That large town of dead people have family and friends, they are not just statistics.

[Pettytyrant101]

{( So today the US hit yet another awful milestone- a single day death toll of 3,124 individuals who wont be home for xmas with their families (more than died on 9/11). Projections are of 332,000 to 362,000 dead in total by start of January. 221,000 new infections reported in one day. And hospitilisations reaching a new daily record of 106,688. One third of all US hospitals are at 90% full on their ICU wards.

And on this day of hellish figures for the US and its people how did its President spend his day?- ordering state executions, tweeting about made up election fraud and lending his support to the latest ridiculous attempt to overturn the results, bad mouthing Germany over its covid rises (incredibly given Germany has a far, far better rate per 100,000 than the US), and hosting Jewish groups in completely unsafe parties at the White House.

Not a word about all those lives lost. And yet he is still apparently popular with his devoted base. I honestly think America is over as a serious power in the world and is probably heading for some sort of breakup as its democratic instuitions crumble under Trumps undemocratic assault. }}

[Mrs Figg]

I think Biden will spend his whole presidency trying to undo the Trump damage, leaving it to others to progress onto more normal concerns like the climate and race relations. How can you shoot someone just for holding a sandwich? There are very scary parts of America away from the coasts if you are Black.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I fear its too late Figg- America seems like Humpty Dumpty after he's fallen off the wall, you can't put it back together again. }}

[halfwise]

There have been things simmering under the surface which were held in check by social standards, but Trump ripped the scabs off to reveal what was festering underneath. We didn't realize how bad it was until he exposed it.

Again, these are really not bad or stupid people. Not in the least. But there are inconsistent viewpoints which can't be easily comingled until people come out of their trenches.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ They seem pretty bad to me, they are defending a narcissist with dictator tendencies in his attempt to undermine and destroy the very democratic institutions your country is founded upon- what Russia and China failed to achieve they are doing for them. And when you are destroying the worlds greatest democracy and your own country from within and doing what your country's enemies could only dream of for them, you ain't on the side of right. }}